Host: Dame Wilburn

Dame: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host, Dame Wilburn. 

This year, Halloween falls on a full moon. Besides making the holiday a little extra creepy, the full moon holds a lot of power for a lot of people. In addition to affecting ocean tides and appearances in plenty of folklore, werewolves, anyone, the full moon is also deeply important in witchcraft and astrology. In these practices, the moon represents our inner world. 

The full moon heightens our emotions and puts us more in touch with ourselves and others, especially those on the other side. It's a time for deep self-reflection and powerful realizations. So, this week, we have two stories about listening to your intuition and the revelations that can follow. 

Our first storyteller is Kathleen McKitty Harris. Kathleen told this story at a StorySLAM in New York City, where the theme of the night was Haunted. Here's Kathleen, live at The Moth.

[cheers and applause] 

[crosstalk] 

Kathleen: [00:01:18] Not all ghosts are scary. Some of them haunt you with the nicest, sweetest, kindest intentions. I'm a native New Yorker, as my parents were before me and theirs were before them. One anomaly in our long city lineage was my great-grandfather, Edward Morris. He immigrated from Northern Ireland in 1901, passing through Ellis Island at age 20. He lived on Broome Street in the Lower East Side, and he worked as a trolley conductor, navigating the streetcar through the treacherous turn once infamously known as Dead Man's Curve in Manhattan's Union Square. 

After he suffered a heart attack, was widowed and retired, he moved in with his daughter and son-in-law, my maternal grandparents in Queens. His granddaughter, my mother, often remarked that Edward, an Irish farm boy, could grow kale and rhubarb in the most narrow strip of Queens soil [audience laughter] you have ever seen in a cemented backyard, long before those bearded hipsters had their nice sustainable gardens and their nice Brooklyn rooftops. [audience laughter] He was a miracle worker. [audience laughter] 

In 1970, I was born, his first great-grandchild. He was thrilled to have lived long enough to meet me and to witness his future firsthand. Baba, as we called him, bounced me on his knee as well as a 90-year-old man could, singing me IRA fight songs. [audience laughter] I, in turn, as a toddler, delighted in sitting next to him and patting his hand while he told me stories and blowing him kisses repeatedly every time I left the room.

In 1972, when I was two, Baba had a stroke and had to be rushed to the hospital. My mother, his beloved granddaughter, adored him and would visit him frequently. In those days, children couldn't go to the hospital to visit patients. My great-grandfather's lament was that he couldn't see me. My mother would reassure him, "Don't worry, you're getting better. You'll get out of the hospital. You'll see her soon, I promise you." On one of their last visits, my great-grandfather took her hand and said, "Eileen, I'm 91. I'm old. I had a good life. I'm not getting out of here. I'm not going to see the baby again." 

A few nights later, while he was still recuperating in the hospital, my mother tried to put me to sleep. As a wild and active toddler, I often crashed in bed immediately. But that night, for some strange reason, I wouldn't settle down. I cried, I tossed and turned and thrashed. And this went on for hours. My mother finally decided to bring me into bed with her and my father. They were worried. Maybe I was sick, maybe I was spiking a fever. 

This continued until the early hours of the morning when I suddenly sat up and crawled towards the edge of the bed, and looked intently and happily at a dark corner of my parents’ bedroom. My parents saw nothing, but they knew that I saw something because my eyes lit up and I smiled and I clapped my hands and I said, "Goodbye, Baba. Goodbye, Mama." I blew him dozens of kisses into the emptiness. 

"He's gone," my father said. "I know," my mother answered. She said it was one of the most peaceful, beautiful moments she's ever witnessed in her life. They looked at the clock. It was 04:00 AM. A few hours later, my mother's father, my grandfather, called to say that Baba had passed between the hours of 03:00 AM and 04:00 AM in the hospital.

Someone could give a very logical explanation for my behavior, but here's my heartfelt one. I believe that my great-grandfather used me as an innocent conduit in the afterlife to show us that vast oceans, and immigrant passenger ships, and perilous turns and death itself cannot break the bonds of family or love. 

Years later, in my 20s, my groovy hippie mother gave me a birthday present, a psychic reading. [audience laughter] The medium said to me, "You know, there are a lot of spirit guides around you. One of them is named Edward." "Did you know an Edward?" "Yes," I answered. "I knew an Edward." "He's never left you," she said. "No," I answered. "He never has. He never will." Thank you.

[cheers and applause] 

Dame: [00:07:04] That was Kathleen McKitty Harris. Kathleen is a fifth-generation native New Yorker, writer and co-host of What’s Your Story, a live reading series in northern New Jersey, where she lives with her husband and her two children. To see some photos of Kathleen's great-grandfather, Edward Morris, head to our website, themoth.org. 

Thinking about ghosts and this time of year, I've had my fair share of family members and friends coming to check in on me from the other side, much like Kathleen. But there was this one time when I was in college, I was working campus security and my friend, Paul Wittenas, was working with me. We decided instead of splitting a 24-hour shift, we’d just work the 24-hour shift together. Now, that required at least one of us to go check on all the buildings, once at 9 o'clock at night and once at 6 o'clock in the morning. I decided to take the 9 o'clock, and I went out through the dorm and went about the business of checking the locks. 

When I got to the cafeteria, it sounded like there was a party going on. So, I pulled on the doors to see if they were open, see if someone on campus had just gotten inside, but they were locked. As I pulled the doors, the party got louder, like it was getting closer, like it was coming towards me. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck and it shook me, so that I just quickly went through the rest of the buildings, locked up what I was supposed to. Instead of coming back past the cafeteria into the dorm, I decided to walk around and go outside. 

So, I'm coming through the front doors where security is. Paul looks at me and says, "Hey, why didn't you just come back past the cafeteria?" And I said, "Well, no real reason." So, we're hanging out, drinking coffee. It comes up on 06:00 AM. Paul grabs the master keys and goes out towards the cafeteria. About 30 minutes later, Paul comes back in through the front doors, just like I had. So, I asked him, "Hey, why didn't you come back through the dorm?" 

He looked me dead in the eye and said, "When you went past the cafeteria, did it sound like there was a party going on?" The hair stood up on the back of my neck again. I said, "Yeah." "And when I pulled on the doors," he finished my sentence. "The party got louder." I said, "Yes." We sat there for a minute, just stared at each other in absolute silence. 

Eventually, he started talking about what was on TV and so did I, because both of us realized that if I heard it and he heard it, there's a pretty good chance it was real.

The thing about that other side, where those who have gone before us hang out, they don't just come see us at Halloween. They can come see us whenever they want. 

Our next storyteller on this Halloween episode is Michael Walz. Michael told this story at a StorySLAM in Boston, where the theme of the night was also Haunted. Here's Michael, live at The Moth.

[cheers and applause] 

Michael: [00:10:38] I got this, right? Good. Okay. Wow, it's a lot scarier up here than you thought it would be. [chuckles] Let me start with the apologies. One, I'm terrified, so I'm probably going to screw this up a whole bunch of times. So, I apologize for that now. Secondly, I'm 47. I know, right? [audience laughter] You're thinking I look great for a middle-aged guy, right? Yeah. [audience cheers] 

Thank you. In my 47 years, I've been called a lot of things and I've been told I either am or am not something, like transvestite, transsexual, cross-dresser, transgender, you name it, a whole bunch of stuff. So, if going forward, I use the wrong term when I'm giving this story, I apologize to people out there. If we could just check our [chuckles] liberal privilege at the door for the rest of the night [audience laughter] or at least the next five minutes. [audience applause] 

It's an NPR crowd. I know that's hard, but-- So, 47, as I said. Back in my early 30s, I was in love. I was in love with this woman. She was fantastic. We were together for several years. So, it was serious. It was a real thing. By the third date, I had told her that I was a cross-dresser. Pretty much what she said to me was, "Fine. I don't want to know. I don't want to see it and I don't want my friends to know." 

Now, you may think that, why would you be with a woman and how could you be in love with a woman, who was like that and who would say that about you? That's where the haunted part comes in of tonight's theme. Because my tribe, people like me, we are haunted. We are haunted by the ghosts of girlfriends’ pasts. [laughs] There's the girlfriend who said, "You know, you're fantastic and I think you're great except for--" Or, the woman you told after the third date, and she never answered your calls. Or, the one who said, "You can tell me anything. I love you" and then didn't. 

I probably should have prepped you. [chuckles] This was going to be a little heavy. [laughs] The rest have been like, "Hey!" and not so much. [audience laughter] So, anyway, so my tribe, we keep our skeletons in our closet. But there's one day during the year where the skeletons and the ghosts and the goblins and the freaks and we all come out to play together, and that's Halloween. 

So, one year, my girlfriend says, "I want to go to this really fancy Halloween party downtown. It's a fundraiser. It's this big thing." And I say, “Great. Let's go.” And then I say, “Why don't I go in drag? I'll go as a witch.” I know, right? It's a great idea. [audience laughter] She thinks for a minute and she says, "You know what? Yeah, why don't we try that? Why don't we do that?" I'm like, “Oh, this is great. All right, we'll do that.” So, I get this witch costume and I put it together and we go to the fancy event. 

There's the random comment that you expect. It's like, "Oh, you do that a little too well," or "Come on, it's really not the first time you've done this" or whatever. I deny it and I lie, because that's what I'm supposed to do. But the one thing I don't notice is that my usually sober girlfriend has been drinking like a sailor. She is smashed. She is vomiting, puking, drunk in the bar. So, I get her, and I get her in a cab and I get us home and I get her in the bathroom. I hold her hair, because that's what you do, you know? 

While I'm holding her hair and she gets a breath at one point and she relaxes and she says, pretty much out of nowhere, "I could never marry somebody like you." I know, right? That’s a whoa. I’d love to say that at that point, I held my head up high and I walked out, or that a couple days later, she came to her senses and said, "I love you," and we’ve been together for the last 15 years. But none of that happened. 

We broke up a few months later. But that moment was the birth of an idea. And that idea was that I was never going to create another ghost. I wasn’t going to be haunted by another girlfriend. I wasn’t going to be with anybody who was ashamed to be with me and I wasn’t going to be with anybody who made me ashamed to be myself. And I never did. Thank you.

[cheers and applause]

Dame: [00:15:32] That was Michael Walz. Michael actually told this story wearing one of his favorite dresses. He said he’d thrown his name in the hat, a couple of times, but knew if he was going to tell this story, he’d need an extra bit of confidence. 

Born and raised in New Jersey, Michael is the youngest of seven children. He's lived outside of Boston for the last 20 years. Of his gender identity, Michael said, "Gender non-binary is closest. Genderqueer is easiest, but way too loaded a phrase." He says, “For most of the world, saying, I'm a guy that does some female things," works. It doesn’t feel accurate, but it’s close enough, like a bad English translation of a great Spanish poet. 

We jumped on the phone with Michael to talk more about Halloween, his moment of clarity and his life after telling his story.

Michael: [00:16:29] Firstly, I just want to get this out and on the record that I still occasionally talk to that woman who I was dating at the time. She’s not bad people. I don’t think of her as bad people. It took me 35 years to get accustomed to myself. The fact that she couldn’t match me in two years, I can’t really hold that against her.

That being said, [chuckles] that night, that Halloween, something inside of me snapped. It didn’t snap in a bad way. It said, "No more of this. No more of hiding, no more of trying to be somebody that I’m not and no more feeling embarrassed about who I am." I guess I was in love with her enough and it hurt enough to make me realize that I wasn’t going to go through this again. And it’s progressed.

You know, I started off in hiding as a closeted cross-dresser, somebody who didn’t tell anybody about it, it was only something I would do in private, to then somebody who would go out on Halloween only. I love Halloween. It’s not always about-- Well, now, it’s not always about dressing up. For years, it was always about presenting as some kind of female costume, because Halloween was the only time I could do that and leave the house and be around people and it would be accepted, or at least not ostracized for it.

I had one friend who worked at a beauty store and she loved the idea of doing my makeup. Then, of course, there were a bunch of other female friends of mine who wanted to join in, and then somebody got the idea I should be a French maid, because they were like, “Oh, we need to do a costume.” And that was way over the top, but I wasn't going to fight it, so I went with it. The experience was terrifying, but also great. 

I don't know, crossing that border made me really want to keep going. There was something that was a-- it was a relationship with people that I always wanted to have and there were parts of myself I always wanted to express. And this was a chance that I got to do it. Once I had gone out once for Halloween, I wasn't going to go back. It finally got me to be somebody who just wears what I want to wear and goes where I want to go. It's not that simple.

I spent so many years in hiding. You get used to it. There's a Bruce Springsteen line, "You end up like a dog that's been beat too much." That's how I felt. Particularly in the last three or four years, I've finally gotten to that point where I don't feel like I'm hiding anymore. I don't feel like I need to hide. I feel like the problem is with them, not with me. I can't communicate how liberating that is. To finally get to the point where I don't feel like I'm the problem. I don't have the word to describe that. 

I remember when I was a kid and I was raised Roman Catholic and I went to confession for the first time. It feels like that, where I just gave all my sins up and I was forgiven for them. It's that kind of feeling.

Dame: [00:19:34] That was Michael Walz. To see photos of Michael's many Halloween costumes, including one he calls Ben Franklinstein, yes, you heard that right, head to our website, themoth.org. 

Astrology teaches us a lot about our relationship to the planets and to the moon and to the things around us. But mostly what I think it teaches us, is that we are made up of stardust and millions of acts of love. 

So, from all of us here at The Moth, Happy Halloween and have a blessed Samhain. 

Julia: [00:20:16] Dame Wilburn is a longtime host and storyteller at The Moth. She's also the host of the podcast, Dame's Eclectic Brain.

Dame: [00:20:24] Podcast production by Julia Purcell. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.